Democrats won back control in the House and Senate in New Mexico, and they are hard at work chipping away at your Second Amendment rights. The stench of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun rights money is wafting out of Santa Fe, and stinking up the entire state. This is similar to the bill Bloomberg spent $20 million to buy support from state legislators in Nevada, and a similar buy out of politicians in Washington state.

The bills are carefully crafted by expensive lawyers, claiming to “close the gun show loophole.” The truth is there is no language in either the Senate bill or House bill regarding gun shows. What it will do is criminalize nearly all private firearms sales between individuals, and will require a federally licensed dealer, extensive paperwork, and, of course, a fee. It further restricts “transfer” of firearms and would treat gifts, loans, and other temporary exchanges (such as loaning a hunting rifle to a cousin) in the same manner.

How does this ridiculous jam up of law-abiding citizens help to keep us safe? How would this law have prevented the 82 shootings resulting in 14 deaths in Chicago over the Christmas holiday, where some of the strictest gun laws in the country have been passed? The answer is easy, it would have done nothing.

New Mexico citizens, don’t be lulled to sleep thinking your elected officials have your best interests in mind — they don’t. They have their own interests and re-election support in mind.

It’s baffling that a billionaire from New York City is influencing policy in New Mexico. Even more baffling is that our legislators appear to be going along.

Leslie Garamella,

La Mesa

GOP rule changes did attempt to break ACA

In response to the column by Anthony Levatino, Republicans did change the rules after insurance companies set up their programs. Both the Affordable Care Act and Medicare Part D were created with risk corridors. To simplify, this was a way to cover losses by some companies by diverting profits from others. Part D still has risk corridors and remains profitable for insurance companies.

In the 2015 Appropriations Act (dated Dec. 16, 2014), Appropriations panel Chairman Rep. Jack Kingston inserted one sentence that blocked Health and Human Services from obtaining any of the necessary risk corridor funds. This purposely created a $2.5 billion shortfall in the risk-corridor program in 2015. As a result, many nonprofit insurance co-ops failed, health insurance companies began to raise premiums to compensate, and some health insurance companies, recognizing an untenable environment created by Republicans, took their losses and left the market.

Not being able to repeal the program, Republicans made an after-the-fact change in an attempt to break the program. So, flaws were not all in the original design but were added later. This little-noticed change allowed people to blame the Affordable Care Act. For more information see angrybearblog.com/?s=risk+corridor . This provides more information including the exact changes that were made.